It appears that Pettitte will be pitching for the Yankees in '09.As the New York Yankees began a round of scouting meetings this week to discuss the future of the team, they know that veteran left-hander Andy Pettitte intends to pitch in 2009, and his intention is to pitch for them.
Sources said on Wednesday that Pettitte's agent, Randy Hendricks, has informed the Yankees of this recently.
No contract for 2009 has been negotiated between the pitcher and the team, but he has made it clear that he wants to play for the Yankees and the Yankees have made it clear that they want Pettitte...
7 Comments:
Pettitte has been a great Yankee, but I'm not sure how much he can really contribute at this point of his career, especially for a team in the AL East with intentions to win a World Series. Then again, I'm not sure the Pinstripers really have that many other options at this point.
I would agree that Pettitte is no longer a top-notch or even above-average pitcher, but I would argue that he will be fairly consistent, dependable, and eat a lot of innings. Bringing him back makes a lot of sense and will help the whole staff, even if he is only a #4 pitcher in the rotation.
Moreover, Goldman makes a good case that Pettitte may be more a victim of the Yanks lead-footed defense than his own eroding skills:
"He was rather relentlessly hammered, although we should keep the following in mind: the batting average on balls in play against Pettitte was .341. The league average was .303, which argues for some Yankees falling down instead of catching the ball. Throw in that his line drive rate was only a tick about average (21 percent vs. 19 percent) and that his ground ball rate was well above average and we can make a decent argument that he got a raw deal on the big D. His strikeout rate was actually a bit above average for his career and a whole lot better than 2007. Even in those miserable last dozen starts or so it didn't drop off. I'd rather have Mussina back, but with some better luck and an improved set of gloves for the Yankees, the possibility of a Pettitte bounce-back season can't be ruled out."
I'd say he'd be a .500 pitcher at best.
Mike
Pettitte pitched hurt for a large part of the season, I wouldn't doubt for a second that he has more to give this team.
I agree with Danny.
I mentioned it yesterday - the injury + plus a an offseason where he didn't train like he normally does (which he admitted) led to his bad second half.
I believe the real Andy Pettitte is closer to the Pettitte who pitched from April to June and not the guy who pitched from July to September.
This is not good news. We will have to finish in front of either Tampa or Boston (maybe both) to make the play-offs next year. That means we need to radically improve our starting rotation, rather than pay around $16 million for a pitcher who went 14-14 this year, shoulder injury or no shoulder injury. Re-signing Andy would be a real backward step.
A healthy Chien-Ming Wang and CC will radically improve the starting rotation. And a healthy Joba will help too.
Pettitte will probably be the Yanks number 5 starter next year. That's not a bad thing.
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